Marshal Vladmir Karamatsov is dead, the victim of the fierce undersea battle for Mid-Wake. But with his arch enemy gone, John Thomas Rourke, the ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapoos specialist and survival expert, still lives, fighting the elements and the odds. On an expedition to secrue peaceful relations with the Far East, Rourke's son Michael and his ambassadors are imprisoned by the mysterious leader of the Second City of Chine, a sadistic madman intent on unleashing another nuclear holocaust on an already war-ravaged world. With Russian Colonel Antonovich, Karamatosov's surviving second-in-command, preparing to mount his own assault on the Second City to gain control of the remainder of China's pre-war atomic arsenal, John Rourke finds himself trapped between two seemingly invincible enemies. And with precious time running out, he is the only man who can resuce his capotured son and save what is left of civilizaiton from total destruction. He is The Survivalist.